A blog expanding on the subjects discussed in our movie "Science Sex and the Ladies." We blog critically on a specific intersection of science, sexuality, and feminism; particularly paying attention to how female sexual response is discussed, portrayed, and studied in our culture. So...if you're interested in science, sex, lady stuff, or indie movie making...this is the blog for you.

2.23.2012

Suraya Sidhu Singh, Editor Filament Magazine - The SSL Interview

I've been a fan of Filament magazine ever since I received some back issues in the mail last year. Not only is it simply a good read (and quite nice to look at), but it is also an important contribution towards the female inclusive kind of sexual culture that Science Sex and the Ladies promotes. The goal is a future that incorporates female orgasm, desire, and fantasy as fully into mainstream media as is male orgasm, fantasy, and desire. The creation of Filament magazine is an important step in that direction, and that's why I invited the editor of Filament, Suraya Sidhu Singh, to be part of my SSL interview series.

It is not simply that Suraya created a magazine for women with smart articles about things other than shopping, fashion, celebrities, and weight loss/fitness/cosmetics or that Filament includes erotic pictures of men. It is that she took the female gaze seriously (check out more on that HERE).

In a society where the bulk of the depictions of female sexuality hover in the "looking sexy" arena, and where most depictions of male sexuality hover in "desiring sexy ladies" land, Suraya Sidhu Singh flipped the switch. She gave women a platform for creating erotic imagery of men, and frankly, ladies loved it. What I suspected from my own and my friends' experiences is confirmed on the website, "Since its first issue in June 2009, Filament’s readership, distribution
and advertising has grown steadily. More people are reading Filament
than ever before and according to our recent readership survey, you
think it’s getting more awesome." Unfortunately (and surprisingly), Filament closed its doors in November of 2011. Suraya decided to end the magazine for entirely personal reasons, and you can see more about the decision HERE. There is still a lot of love out there and tons of avid fans still hanging with Filament on Facebook and following it through Twitter. It defiantly resonated with people.

Filament was groundbreaking; a fantastic example of what a modern magazine, catering genuinely to the female gaze, might look like. The success and love that this magazine has accumulated should be seen as a beginning - not an end. Obviously, I was more than excited that Suraya agreed to speak with me. I decided to focus many of the questions on the pictures in the magazine because
I am really interested in them; the idea of the female gaze, how we can
increase female gaze in the media, how hard it is to find and access quality
female-gaze-photos, and also men and women's reactions to it. I imagine in at least some ways, her
experiences and struggles could be viewed as a sort of microcosm for the struggles
that happen while trying to pursue genuine female gaze in larger established
media like Hollywood movies. Here goes....

Me: Could you describe
what you were ideally looking for in the pictures?

Suraya: We published a
document of guidance for photographers on our website that was formed through
discussions and polls that had been conducted on an online community we’d
created. It was in a sort of ‘we want to see more...’/’we want to see less...’
format, because nothing we were looking for was absolute and we didn’t want to
dissuade anyone from submitting anything.

The methodology
obviously wasn’t ideal, but I think it worked quite well – the list of criteria
pretty much exactly matched the feedback we later received about photoshoots,
although it did amaze me that most readers assumed that the photoshoots we were
publishing were our “ideals”, when in fact we didn’t really get much of a
chance to apply our criteria in choosing photoshoots because we never had
enough choice to do so.

Me: How often were you
seeing what you were hoping to see in the submitted photos, and what were some
of the common problems you saw among the submitted photos?

Suraya:I think the overall
quality of the photographs themselves was good – most of the photographers were
inventive with concepts and good with lighting and post-production.

I was hoping to
receive more images that were more spontaneous, lively, fun and erotically charged.
We did tend to get a lot of very posed, static pictures. I think that’s a lot
about the fact that nobody has much experience with this whole ‘photographing
men for a female audience’ thing – neither the models nor the photographers. If
you look at the work of some of the more experienced female photographers of
men though – Britt Marie Trensmar, Sita Mae Edwards, Dianora Niccolini and
Shami Kiely for example – their work seems a lot more lively.

We rarely received
explicit shoots. Ideally I think the audience would’ve preferred about a 1:1
balance in terms of erect shoots vs more subtle shoots, but we were always
lucky to get one erect shoot per issue.

We also tended to get
a lot of submissions involving the same ‘type’ of model: slender, hairless,
alternative-looking white guys in their 20s. Of course there’s nothing wrong
with these types of guys, but when that one look becomes pretty much all you’re
publishing, of course it’s a problem.

Amusingly, my friends
assumed that what appeared in Filament had to do with the type of men that I
liked, and consequently I got set up with “likely suspects” a few times. It was
baffling until I realised what was going on.

I think that an
important point is that if a guy appeared in Filament, it was generally because
a straight (or bi) female photographer thought he was mad hot, and as a way of
choosing models for a magazine aimed at women, I think that’s valid. You get
the skew in type of guys presented because the pool of female photographers
willing to photograph men erotically is minuscule.

Me:What types of
people ended up being the ones who submitted photos that were actually used?

Suraya:We had contributors
from all around the world and all levels of experience. Because women
photographing men erotically is a taboo – for example, if you do it people tend
to assume that you’re emotionally damaged or sexually promiscuous – it tends to
be a certain type of woman who is brave enough not to care about other people’s
potential judgements. It turned out that a lot of these women were what you
would probably describe them as alternative – goth, punk, geek, rockabilly,
metal, for example. I guess that probably influenced their model choices and
gives their photography a subcultural aesthetic, which is good in that it is
inherently challenging, but can be off-putting to a mainstream audience.

Me:What did you find were
the best ways to find and connect with these people?

Suraya:The photography in the
first issue or two was mainly done by friends and friends-of-friends. Again,
this wasn’t my choice but it was the only option I had – we had been looking
for submissions from a wider pool, but hadn’t received any. Once our first
issues came out and people started to realise that this was ‘a real magazine’
(as opposed to someone’s pipe dream) we started to receive more submissions.

I think the best
method I found was approaching photographers directly from finding their work
on sites like Deviant Art or Flickr, and asking them to submit – this generally
worked well. I’d get in touch with any woman who was photographing men.
There still weren’t many to choose from.

At times I posted
calls for submissions on various websites and forums that photographers use,
which wasn’t so successful. A lot of people would say they were
interested, but never submit anything.

We’d get a lot of
people who upon hearing that we were having trouble finding photographers would
say ‘Oh, I know loads of photographers who’d love to do that,
you’re obviously not trying very hard!’ Then they ask a few photographer
friends and everyone says, ‘No, I wouldn’t feel comfortable photographing a man
erotically...’ and they realise the problems we were facing were real and
complex, and had to do with social values not effort.

Me: I know, through writings in the magazine and the website, that you were
constantly working to gain more and better submissions. How do you think the
process of acquiring these photos would go in an ideal world?

Suraya:I hear from friends
who work at fashion magazines and men’s erotic magazines – even small-scale
independent, volunteer magazines akin to Filament – that they receive large
volumes of unsolicited photographic submissions. We were actively soliciting
photographic submissions, and yet received scarcely enough to decline one or
two per issue. I’m not sure how to account for that difference.

If you can offer
payment for photoshoots, which unfortunately Filament never could afford to do,
you will probably have more choice. However, I don’t think this is the absolute
cure-all that many people think – for example, I would say that the people I
encountered who were the most concerned about getting paid for everything they
did tended to be those for whom the quality of their work least warranted it.

Me: I was wondering if you had any sense or any feedback that
part of the problem in finding males pictured in the female gaze had to do with
men being unwilling to play that role?

Suraya: Yes, absolutely. One thing I didn't
mention is that even when you can get a guy to agree to modelling, they are not
necessarily going to be a good model, and so the photos can come out wooden. Some
of the photographers I know who shoot both men and women say that women seem to
know how to act in front of the camera but men seem to have to learn it, which
makes sense to me as, well, my brothers despair about their young daughters
copying all the inappropriate sexy poses that they see in music videos etc, so
it obviously starts quite young for girls.

On the other hand, I think I was
surprised how many guys were keen to be shot. The trouble was finding the guys
in the first place. Even in London!

Me: I think it's fair
to say somebody out there has said at some point that there should be a
magazine for and by women that features hot nude men and great (non shopping or
beauty related) articles. However, you actually did it. That is no small decision
and, I'm sure, a huge undertaking. What made you take that extra step and
actually do it?

Suraya:I felt that if I
didn’t take the punt and see how it went, I knew that I’d be thinking ‘What
if...?’ for the rest of my life. I’ve always been like that, perhaps to my
peril – armchair philosophers get a lot less criticism than those people who go
out there and really try to make a difference.

Me: From the magazine, what are a couple of the most successful pieces in
your opinion? (particular pics, articles, advice columns?)

Suraya:One thing I think we
did really well from the beginning was the articles – both the quality of the
articles that we provided and realising that these were going to be really
important to the audience. The philosophy, history and science articles were
particularly well liked.

Me: I couldn't agree more with your assessment of the articles in Filament. They
were great, and it was really refreshing to have science and history articles
in a women's magazine. Where were these submissions largely coming from, and
what did you find was the best way to reach these writers?

Suraya: In the first and second issue the
writers were people who were friends of mine, friends of friends... Once we
were published, people (some readers and others who had heard of Filament) just
started to volunteer, proposing ideas for articles.

Me: Where did you find
some of the most surprising support in regards to the creation or the success
of Filament? Where did you find some of the most surprising nay-saying or
resistance?

Suraya:Our most ardent supports and most angry
detractors would explain their feelings on the matter by saying that they are
feminists, which is of course one of the great challenges for feminism – some
of us have polar opposite views of how to get to gender equality.

I think it’s sad that some women
(and men) can confidently bark ‘You can’t be a feminist and like porn!’ or ‘I’m
anti-porn because I’m pro-sex!’ while being unable to answer questions like,
exactly what constitutes pornography?

Me: On
a personal note, I wonder how bad your experiences were with some of the
feminist detractors. Like you said, there is such a large array of opinions
among people who are feminist, which makes perfect sense - being that feminists are as varied as women themselves, but it can feel like a huge
challenge. I've always assumed this to be the case, but it never hit me in the
face until I started contacting people about my movie. Even along with the ton of support I received from feminist identified people I spoke with, the few negative reactions I received made
me feel pretty bad at times, and I had to sort of realign my expectations in a
way I hadn't realized I would need to do. I was just
wondering how intense those experiences were and if you have any insight.

Suraya: I think I understand where their defensiveness comes from. I think that if I
hadn't been the one to start Filament, I probably would've hated it on
principle for a few years before I bothered to look at it, under the assumption
that there had to be something bad about it, because in my
experience whenever someone had told me about something sexy or erotic and said
it was 'quite feminist', it turned out to be at the very least problematic. For
example, there was a famous porn site that went to lengths to make it appear as
though it was owned and run by the models, when in fact it was owned and run by
a guy, and the models had far less control over their own pictures than was
even standard for the industry.

To be fair though, I think I've only
encountered a small number of feminist-identified people who were nasty, angry
and ill-informed in the way that they objected to Filament, but the experiences
really stay with me.

Me: Could you give some suggestions
for where people can go to find other examples of media inspired by the female
gaze?

Suraya: There are some other small magazines
around that like Filament, are unashamedly aimed at a female audience and
include erotic photography of men. Poolboy magazine
is probably most similar to Filament, but if you like something more trendy and
humorous, try Candy Rain.

If you're looking for adult film,
checking out the winners of the Feminist Porn Awards is a good place to start. Erika Lust is
probably the female adult filmmaker who is producing work with the highest
production values lately. Whoever the filmmaker is, always get their most
recent work, because it tends to be the best.

Ms Naughty, proprietor of women's
online erotica site For the Girls, also keeps a web portal
of all things female gaze.

Thanks again to Suraya Sidhu Singh. It was an absolute pleasure. If you are into what Filament was putting out, then please check out their Facebook Page, their Website or follow them on Twitter @filamentmag so you can keep you in the loop on female gaze in media.

2 comments:

When I read my first issue of Filament (I think it was no. 3) after a friend recommended it to me, it was such an eye-opening experience: not just the photos but also the wide range of smart articles. I can't believe I gave my issues to friends - I really didn't think they'd close doors so quickly...

It was a great magazine. Hopefully we'll see more like it popping up - really genuinely good ones like Filament. Oh - and you should get working on some super secret spy maneuvers to get those issues back from your friends!